Goods and Services

Goods and Services

Inside the topic of economics is the commonly taught goods and services attribute. Goods and services is an important but simple way for younger students to understand the gist of economics. Goods is something you can buy, where a service is something done for you or someone else. You can twist goods and services in many, many different ways to fit your students understandings and needs. You can also do many fun things with this topic. For example, inside the 2nd grade classroom we are doing fieldwork in, goods and services is taught in a discreet and amusing way. Before my college class arrived, the 2nd grade lesson wasn't even focusing on economics, but they had a system in place that is entirely what goods and services is. The teacher has a coin system where a student will earn a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, or rarely a bill, for doing a good job inside the classroom. Then, at the end of the week the students will have the opportunity to buy different things with the money they have earned. But, the students also have the choice to save their money and save it for something better in the long run. This is a double teaching method; the teacher is rewarding and encouraging students for good behavior while also teaching them the basic concepts of goods and services.

When teaching goods and services, you can direct it in many different ways with many different examples. You can even have your students come up with their own examples that they do in their everyday life- like grocery shopping or even going to school. Goods and services is an on going lesson whether realized or not, therefore it is important to specifically spend some time on it in your classroom. You could go through your entire classroom debating whether something is a good or service or even go on a field trip to somewhere else and do the same thing! It is always a surprise to your students when they find out you yourself, as a teacher, is a service to them (making personal connections to the lesson)!





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Current Events

Image
Current Events Social Studies is not only history but it is also todays current news. What was and is going on in your neighborhood and around the world is all relevant and important news to share. When someone thinks of a current event, they imagine the assignment you get in school where you have to find your local newspaper and pick a article to explain and present to the class. But, it is more than that; current events are around us all day everyday, especially in todays technology filled society. For this college course on teaching social studies, of course we had to do the typical assignment. Me and two other students worked together to find a relevant article and present it to the class with a few activities. Our article was on New York state banning the sale of large sugary drinks and how it will affect the economy in New York. Before this assignment, I had never even heard of this new law attempting to be pa...
Read more

The Importance of Economics in Social Studies

Image
The Importance of Economics in Social Studies  Economics is a huge part of social studies and although this may be obvious to us, for elementary school students, it isn't. Most students can guess that economics has something to do with money, but many don't know all the different aspects of it. The subject of economics has many new vocabulary words that students may not have seen before, such as supply and demand, scarcity, producers, consumers, needs, wants, etc. All of these words have an explanation relating to money and how products are made or wanted. When explaining these to elementary students, it can be tricky because they are complex and difficult concepts. Keeping definitions and examples simple and relatable is the best way to go. For example, asking the students about something that they want really bad and then having them connect it to the world of economics.  This subject can also be boring for elementary students because they don't necessarily hav...
Read more

Connecting to Economics

Image
Connecting to Economics In chapter ten of our class textbook,  National Social Science Press,  I was able to read up on the different ways we can make connections to economics. In the current moment, elementary students don't think that economics can effect them in anyway, but that is far from the truth. Economics effects just about everyone and everything, whether you have money yourself or not. A growing society can certainly effect the economy just as much as it effects class sizes. The bigger the class, the more needs for services such as teachers, janitors, cafeteria workers, etc. On the other hand, the opposite happens when class sizes go down- there is less of a need for these services. With class sizes growing in rural and poverty stricken areas, there are less services being provided to students who need it most. Important one-on-one attention is being overlooked and neglected because there is simply not en...
Read more